DESIGNING THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY By Eric Fang AIA, LEED AP, AICP | Principal, Perkins Eastman
>> In the past several years, the issue of climate change has swept into our collective consciousness with the devastation of Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy. Much of the attention has been drawn to the issue of coastal inundation, and the kinds of heroic coastal resiliency infrastructure initiatives, like the Thames Barrier in London or the “Big U” in lower Manhattan, that are designed to fortify some of the world’s most famous, and valuable, urban districts. While coastal flooding from rising sea levels has understandably dominated media coverage and debate here in the Northeast, a more endemic, and arguably far reaching effect of climate change has remained relatively unexamined: the increased incidence of extreme precipitation events that are caused by warmer air and contain higher amounts of water vapor.
great as that seen by the region with the next largest increase, the upper Midwest, which saw an increase of 37%. And while these numbers are daunting, it is important to understand the impact increased flooding from ever-increasing heavy precipitation events will have on everyday life. Extreme precipitation events, and the flooding associated with them, will impede people’s ability to get to work and get their kids to school; it will undermine critical infrastructure like passenger and freight railroads, and community facilities like hospitals. In general, it will adversely impact commerce and quality of life for tens of millions of people in the region, and reduce overall productivity. One only need look at present-day Guangzhou and Mumbai, which have been frequently cited as among the world cities subject to the highest levels of debilitating flooding, to get a sense of how the future may impact the According to the Center for Climate and Energy cities and towns of the Northeast. Findings from the Solutions, an independent non-profit devoted to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration studying and advising on critical climate and energy (NOAA) suggest that extreme precipitation events challenges, the combined Northeastern and Midwill continue to increase in frequency everywhere Atlantic region of the United States has seen a 71% in the United States, but with particular intensity increase in the amount of precipitation falling in very in the Northeast and Midwest regions (as well as heavy events from 1958-2012, a jump nearly twice as the Northwest and Alaska); by the latter part of this
>> Photo courtesy of Perkins Eastman
FALL 2017